It all seems to be such a random series of fortunate accidents, the gathering of the Louisville roster that will play Duke late Sunday afternoon for an opportunity to advance to a second consecutive Final Four. So many of these Cardinals players could or should be spending this day elsewhere, and if any of them had followed his original plan it's likely none would be here for the occasion of competing in the NCAA Tournament Midwest Region final.

Of the 10 Louisville players who competed in Friday night's comfortable Sweet 16 victory over Oregon, five at one point had plans to spend all of their entire careers at another Division I institution or, in one case, to transfer and spend his final two seasons of college eligibility elsewhere.

— Starting power forward Behanan, a native of Cincinnati, committed to play for the Cincinnati Bearcats as a sophomore at Aiken High in 2008. His mother, Heaven Warren, had wanted him to move in with family in Bowling Green, Ky., but Chane was resistant to trade the city for the country and also didn’t want to leave his mom. But a fire destroyed their apartment and moving began to make sense. Soon after, he withdrew his commitment to Cincy and eventually signed with Louisville.

— Reserve forward Montrezl Harrell, who ignited Louisville’s comeback victory in the Big East championship game, had signed to play for Seth Greenberg at Virginia Tech. Harrell told Sporting News last June he would have been playing for the Hokies this season had it not been for Tech’s decision to dismiss Greenberg. After requesting a release from his LOI, he decided to reunite with Cards assistant Kevin Keatts, who had attracted him to prep school while coaching at Hargrave Military Academy.

— Backup wing Luke Hancock, who starred down the stretch of Louisville’s essential road win at Syracuse, began his career at George Mason and played two seasons for the Patriots. He was a starter for the Patriots’ 2011 Colonial Athletic Association champions, but after coach Jim Larranaga departed to coach the Miami Hurricanes, Hancock decided to move on, as well. He chose Louisville because he’d played for Keatts, and because his brother had settled there.

— Backup big man Stephan Van Treese, who has contributed double-figure minutes four times since single-elimination play began, was scheduled to depart the Cardinals following last season, in part because the program had run over the scholarship limit with Harrell’s commitment. Van Treese wanted to play Division I, however, which would have meant sitting out another season after barely playing at all during his first three seasons of college.

When the transfer of forward Rakeem Buckles opened a scholarship—and some PT—Van Treese agreed to return. Saturday, he told Sporting News he is guaranteed to return for his final year of eligibility in 2013-14.

“Obviously I knew this team had the potential to be here. The goal was to be here,” Van Treese said. “I’m just glad to be a part of it.”

That’s 91 of the 200 minutes played by Cardinals against Oregon, and all those players either began their careers elsewhere, were headed elsewhere initially or were planning to transfer out of the program at one point. This would seem to be the very model of a modern major-college basketball program.

“God placed us here,” Behanan said. “This is God’s plan. He had this set up before, when we were little.”

It would appear He is working in mysterious ways when it comes to college hoops. Duke, Louisville’s opponents in Sunday’s game, has a rotation that is more conventional, more traditional. The only contributing transfer is All-American guard Seth Curry, who began his career at Liberty after high-major coaches inexplicably made the same mistake of underrating him that they did with his brother, Steph, who became a first-team All-American at Davidson and eventually an NBA star.

The rest of the regulars are mostly highly recruited players who chose Duke over other attractive offers. But Duke also would be different were it not for the get-it-now basketball culture. Forward Michael Gbinije left the Blue Devils after one season to attend Syracuse. Guard Austin Rivers turned professional after a single season and has struggled terribly with his shooting touch.

Theirs is a story nothing like Louisville’s, though. Even two of the team’s stars, center Gorgui Dieng and All-American guard Russ Smith, were almost accidental recruits. When Pitino went to recruit wing Justin Coleman at West Virginia’s Huntington Prep, it was Dieng, the spindly 7-footer from Senegal who caught his eye instead. Smith was a target for Hofstra, Iona and George Mason until Pitino was convinced by then-assistant Ralph Willard to take a chance on a 2-star prospect listed at 5-11, 165.

“Honestly, I was scared. I was really nervous,” Smith said. “I wanted to come. Toward the end of the recruitment I got super-hyped because I realized they were like dead-serious. But initially, I was like, ‘I’d rather go somewhere small or whatever and just run around and score, do what I do best.’ ”

Perhaps the foremost developer of young talent among college coaches, Pitino has helped turn Smith into an All-American and Dieng into a first-round draft pick. This is not the college basketball John Wooden coached, players arriving as freshmen unable to play, leaving as seniors with fame, college degrees and NBA contracts for the best of them.

It’s not even the college basketball that was in place when Pitino and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski began their head coaching careers in the late 1970s.

It’s just college basketball as it is in 2013. No one is navigating these treacherous waters more adeptly than Pitino.